Originally blogged this [0], but thought some might be interested on Tribe...

See: news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4903424.stm

Pleased to see some debate on spirituality make it onto the BBC News homepage. The (ok, "my") question is - how do get such debate honestly into the mainstream consciousness?

Pure faith - in a God or Gods, or in scientific progress (or in anything else) - is simply a way of avoiding the questions that scare us most*. Pure faith is a way of removing responsibility for ourselves and our thoughts on to an external party - a deity in one case, or "progress" in the other...

Coming to terms with a lack of spirituality means coming to terms with ourselves - the ability to look into our own psyche. This isn't easy. But nor do we do anything to make it easier - in fact, most of our activities make it much, much harder. The promotion of "Success" (with a capital S) to the highest good carries with it the fear of failure.

Failure is nothing to be afraid of. Perhaps a "better" society would be one in which this is understood. But then, it's easy to criticise...

* The scary questions are not those such as "why are we here?" either. The questions that scare us are the ones along the line of "what if I don't like me?"

[0]: describe.blogspot.com/2006/04...ind.html